Whose Green Space Is This?

Green soon gone? A park in peril.

For as long as I've known the area, neighbors as well as students have used this green space at the upper end of Jimenez Ave. alongside the Universidad de los Andes to walk their dogs, play football, etc.

A doggie conversation in the park.

However, I recently learned, from a university employee and neighbors, that Los Andes plans to replace the park with a mostly cement plaza as part of their new building project, which however does include lots of new green space inside the university.

I have no idea who owns or administers this space, but it is clear that, over the years, residents have come to depend on it as their neighborhood park. There isn't much other useful green space nearby, of course. The area in front of the Quinta de Bolivar is hilly and has a reputation for muggings. The green patches in the Plaza del Periodista are roamed by drug pushers, which scares others away.

The university plans to replace the
police bunker with a new building.

For the university to unilaterally remove the grassy areas, without public consultation, seems abusive and high-handed, and perhaps even illegal.

This is not the only damaging project being carried out by a university in La Candelaria. On the hills above the neighborhood, the Externado University is constructing two huge towers, turning the green hillsides into cement walls.

One would have hoped that leading universities, which teach about sustainable development, preserving the environment and improving quality of life, would apply those values to their own actions. One would hope.

Lots of cement, little green, in the university's vision. (Photo: Facebook)

An overhead view. (Photo: Facebook)

These new apartment towers nearby will soon fill with students - who will also want green space.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Injustice, Recycled

Extradited paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso.

The New York Times has this long and detailed piece about the light punishments received by many of the far-right paramilitary leaders who demobilized in the mid-2000s and were extradited to United States prisons.

The story makes a strong point: these guys, who may have smuggled tons of cocaine - not to mention ordering massacres, rapes, kidnappings and forced displacements - have gotten shorter sentences than some streetcorner pushers. (Here's ex-Pres. Uribe's response to the story.)

The story, however, is a bit narrow. While the paras' sentences are scandalously short, in the U.S. they did more time on drug charges than they would have back in Colombia for crimes, including crimes against humanity, under the infamous Justice and Peace Law. And, in theory, the death squad leaders are supposed to be returned to Colombia to be prosecuted for their non-drug crimes, altho the Times reports that many have obtained residency in the U.S., apparently as payback for revealing their cocaine smuggling secrets.

As a result, crimes such as massacres, kidnapping, rape and forced displacement, may never be punished at all.

A paragraph from the New York Times story listing some of Mancuso's alleged crimes.

Impunity? Aftermath of the massacre of Bojayá, in which a
FARC missile  landed on the town's church, klling more than
a hundred women and children hiding inside.

But the biggest scandal here, in the eyes of many, is that Colombia is about to do it all over again with the FARC guerrillas. The FARC have also committed horrendous crimes and human rights abuses, if perhaps not on the same scale as the paramilitaries', and under the peace agreement their leaders can not be extradited and will not even go to prison, as long as they confess what they've done. Instead, they'll get 'special detention,' a vague term likely to mean restricting them to a specific municipality.

And FARC members guilty of crimes against humanity, as long as they have confessed, will even be eligible to serve in Congress in one of the FARC's ten guaranteed seats.

None of which is to say that the FARC-government peace deal is not a good thing. However, political leaders should be careful that the FARC deal does not follow the paramilitaries down a path of injustice.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Could Uber Unsnarl Bogotá's Traffic?

Not if the Viceministry of Transport has its way!

Bogotá traffic congestion - an answer in Uber?

Uber, one of the most disruptive and innovative technologies to come along in awhile, has created lots of enemies.

And in Colombia those include not only cabbies, but also the viceminister of transport, who has vowed to shut down the service by blocking its app.

Uber certainly is unfair. Cabbies invest a lot in their vehicles, training and licenses, with the reasonable expectation that this will provide them a career in driving. And then Uber comes along, and suddenly anybody with a car and a smartphone can suddenly be a taxi driver.

It is very unfair. But that's history. The computer was terribly unfair to typewriter companies, the digital camera to film makers, and the automobile to harness makers (and horses). Printing put lots of scribes out of work.

If Transport Viceminister Alejandro Maya gets his way, he'll not only halt Uber, but also
technological advancement. And Uber is only a piece of the shared, coordinated economic revolution, which just might make life in Bogotá a whole lot better.

Taxis under threat. But can Uber do better?

The New York Times reports that Uber, Google and others are experimenting with carpooling, driverless cars and other forms of transport sharing.

Uber unquestionably fills a desire for more convenient, courteous transport service. But, so far, Uber's impacts on traffic are more debateable. Does it put more vehicles on the roads, worsening traffic jams and pollution? Or, by reducing the need for owning a personal car, does it ultimately reduce the number of vehicles?

Whatever the truth, Uber-type technologies clearly have the potential to slash road congestion and improve safety. Self-driving cars will one day soon be much safer and more efficient than human-driven vehicles. Technological platforms open huge potential for car-pooling (something which Bogotá, insanely, has never really invested in). And the New York Times envisions a future with personal vehicles replaced by commonly-used ones, reducing the demand for parking lots, which consume huge portions of urban areas. (Will the viceminister also oppose that change, in defense of the vested interests of parking lot owners?)

But none of those paradigm shifts will be possible if viceminister Maya succeeds in blocking Uber.

(Incidentally, Colombia's banking system is apparently resistant to working with PayPal.)


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Question

On October 2, Colombians will vote up or down on the peace agreement with the FARC guerrillas.

However, the question on the ballot will ask something a bit different.

"Do you support the final agreement to terminate the conflict and build a stable and durable peace?"

Marching for the SI vote on Carrera Septima in Bogotá.

The referendum question doesn't mention the guerrillas, because the government know that would generate lots of public rejection. And, whether the deal will really end the conflict is very dubious. The smaller ELN guerrilla group has not entered negotiations, and a grab-bag of criminal groups and right-wing paramilitaries are still out there, eager to swoop in and occupy the FARC's territories and take over their drug trafficking, illegal mines and other businesses. In fact, El Tiempo reports that the ELN and criminal bands are already moving in.

Colombia, sadly, has structural problems which have scarred its history with violence and won't likely go away thanks to a few signatures and FARC guerrillas' turning in their weapons. The country has huge areas with little government presence and fortunes in illegal money waiting to be scooped up. And its high poverty rate and lack of good jobs - particularly in rural areas - supplies many unemployed young men willing to risk their lives and freedom by joining violent, illegal organizations.

But the government is determined to see the peace deal approved, in part because Pres. Santos' legacy is riding on it. Thus, the 'biased referendum question,' as La Silla Vacia suggests. Most of the rest of the Colombian media, which is cheering for a SI vote, naturally ignores this issue.

La Silla Vacia also points out that the election's rules are tilted in favor of the government and the SI vote. In particular, government resources such as telephones and vehicles can be used to campaign, and since the Santos administration favors the SI, they'll be used mostly that way.

The peace deal also has severe flaws, to which the government and media has given little attention. The most glaring of these are the human rights issues. FARC members who've committed grave crimes will have undergo only a mostly symbolic punishment just as long as they confess their crimes. These people will even be eligible to serve in parliament, where the FARC will have ten guaranteed seats.

Despite the flaws and the biased question, the peace deal may be a good thing for Colombia, if it at least reduces levels of violence. But nobody should expect it to cure all the nation's ills. Colombia still has lots of work to do.

While the biased question may help SI win, it also undermines the referendum's legitimacy and may make the outcome less legitimate in the eyes of Colombians and international observers.



By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Might the Corporations Pay Victims?

U.S. corporations which have escaped charges of responsibility for human rights violations in Colombia because the alleged events happened in Colombia might feel a bit more nervous now, thanks to a recent ruling by a U.S. judge.

Multiple U.S. companies, including Coca Cola, the Drummond coal company, Chiquita banana and others have been accused in U.S. courts of financing illegal Colombian organizations, particularly right-wing paramilitaries, which committed severe human rights abuses, including assassinations, massacres and forced displacements.

But U.S. courts have consistently ruled that the alleged victims of those atrocities and their relatives could not sue in the U.S. because the relevant events took place in Colombia. The courts don't even examine the crimes themselves or the U.S. corporations' relationships with criminal groups.

Hernán Giraldo Serna, ex-paramilitary
leader on trial in the U.S.

However, the other week a federal appeals court in Washington ruled that victims of one Colombian paramilitary extradited to the U.S. on narcotrafficking charges can pursue charges against him there. The one-time paramilitary leader, Hernán Giraldo Serna. ex-leader of the Tayron Block of the so-called self-defense forces, was extradited to the U.S. in 2008 on narcotrafficking charges. However, the family of a social activist and ex-member of the M-19 guerrillas named Julio Henríquez, who was murdered on Giraldo Serna's orders in 2001 joined the case.

A district court ruled that the family did not have standing to participate in the case, but a Washington appeals court reversed that ruling and ordered Henríquez's killing be included in the case, according to El Tiempo.

I'm no lawyer and my understanding of these issues is superficial. And this paramilitary has admitted ordering Henríquez's killing, whereas the corporations are generally only accused of financing outlaw groups which committed crimes, perhaps without even the companies' previous knowledge.

Nevertheless, Henríquez's ability to sue in the U.S. for a crime committed in Colombia seems to offer at least a glimmer of hope for other victims.

The most notorious case is probably Chiquita banana company, which in 2005 confessed to the U.S.

Chiquita, worried?

government that between 1997 and 2004 it had paid millions of dollars in what it called 'protection money' to Colombian paramilitary abuses. During the same years, the paramilitaries were committing severe atrocities, including massacres and forced displacement. Chiquita claims it had no choice but to make the payments in order to protect the lives of its workers, altho the company could have sold its operations and withdrawn from Colombia. Chiquita paid a $25 million dollar fine to the U.S. government, but nothing to the paramilitaries' victims.

Victims of Colombian paramilitaries and their families filed numerous lawsuits against Chiquita in U.S. courts under the Alien Tort Statute, but the cases were dismissed because the relevant events had taken place in Colombia.

Might this latest ruling make a difference?


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Infrastructure Election

Enrique Peñalosa, mayor-elect of Bogotá.

Enrique Peñalosa got the most votes in Bogotá's mayoral election, but the big winners may be construction companies.

A look over campaign contributions as summarized by El Espectador, using information from the Cuentas Claras website (I couldn't get the site to work myself) shows that construction companies financed much of the campaigning, particularly Peñalosa's.

Ex-Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, who led in nearly all the pre-election polls, had the biggest campaign chest. $1.6 billion pesos. El Espectador's article lists at least six builders who contributed to him, and also notes that Peñalosa's 'legal representative' is a director of two construction companies.

At least one of Peñalosa's contributors suffered a recent controversy. Ladrillera Santafe, which mines and sells building materials, was criticized this year by rural residents of Cundinamarca for plans to open three big clay mines, for brickmaking. The critics charged that the mines would destroy the region's ecotourism potential.

There's lots of money in that construction,
whether necessary or not.

It's not hard to see why builders might want Bogotá's new mayor to owe them a favor, since the city
will likely spend a fortune on construction in the next years, on a metro line (sure to cost at least U.S. $10 billion), new roads and bridges, replacing the El Campin football stadium, remaking the Rio Bogotá and many other projects.

But whether such infrastructure is really necessary is another question. Yes, Bogotá has huge traffic jams. But it's well documented that expanding roadways only generates more traffic. The congestion could be reduced much faster and less expensively by discouraging driving, by taxing gasoline more and with a London-style congestion fee. Yes, a metro line would be nice, but the city can't figure out how to cover its projected budget, which is likely to double projectsion. (Peñalosa favors a less expensive, faster-to-build elevated metro line.)

But whether or not the city needs such projects, with construction companies whispering in the mayor's ear, they're much likelier to be built.

People and companies may contribute to candidates for many reasons, including friendship, ideological affnity and respect, but undoubtedly the biggest reason is personal interest: The contributor believes that the candidate, if elected, will promote the contributor's interests, whether by pouring money into their sector of the economy or favoring their specific company. And I suspect that many believe that, if they help get their man or woman into office, he or she will return the favor by funneling city money their way.

That might be good for the company, but not for the city, if the contributing company charges more, is corrupt or less competent than other companies who did not grease the wheels with campaign contributions. Much government spending is not necessary in the first place. For an example, look at the United States' huge and absurd agricultural subsidies, which persist mostly because a few farm states like Iowa have a disproportionate influence in presidential elections.

Whether the builders' investments in Peñalosa's campaign pay off may depend on which Peñalosa governs Bogotá. This Peñalosa campaign video is mostly about building and widening roads all over the city, despite roads' negative impacts on noise, pollution and quality of life - and the fact that they quickly fill up as well.

On the other hand, El Tiempo's summary of Peñalosa's plans emphasizes more sustainable projects such as expanding public transit and bike lanes.

Which Peñalosa will govern Bogotá?

Full disclosure: My business, Bogotá Bike Tours, has benefited indirectly from the construction companies' largesse because we've rented bikes to the Peñalosa campaign.





By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

New Labels, Same Smoke

Recently, in its desperation to expand its peso-hemorrhaging SITP bus system, the Petro administration has been slapping 'SITP' stickers on old buses and - like magic! - transforming them into new, modern, efficient, orderly and clean buses.

Except for the fact that they continue stopping in mid-block, running red lights and belching smoke.

Apparently, that sticker doesn't change anything inside the buses.

¿Why haven't any of the mayoral candidates made cleaning the air part of their campaign platforms?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours